


Takes Fire

by owlishly



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Healing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mutual Pining, Pining, Quasi-Vampiric Weirdness, Sexual Fantasy, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 12:55:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13704888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlishly/pseuds/owlishly
Summary: The Hive feed off Light.Eris Morn is ravenous.





	Takes Fire

Ikora's presence started as a hum. The hum grew to a buzz; the buzz grew to a roar; the roar grew to overwhelm everything else. Under normal circumstances, it would not have been unpleasant. Even now, Eris could pick out individual notes in the maelstrom. They sung to her and her alone, sinking beneath her skin to twine around her bones. Something in her belly twisted.

She folded in on herself, cradling the hunger like a weapon.

 _Stepping out of the lift._ She licked her lips. _Walking down the corridor, past a row of empty rooms._ The air was too dry. Her throat hurt. _Just outside._ She could trace Ikora's outline through the door, a shape clothed in shimmering raiment.

A single knock. “Eris?”

“Come in.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded brittle. Perhaps she should have said _no, don't, go away –_ but Ikora had seen her reduced to less than this, hadn't she? The door mechanism clicked. There was a sharp intake of breath.

“I sent you my report,” Eris said, low.

“Yes,” said Ikora, caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement. “You neglected to tell me you were bedridden.” The chair creaked. “May I see?”

A request, not an order. If Eris voiced the _no_ that was already back on the tip of her tongue, Ikora would leave. It was futile, she knew, to wonder what Ikora had thought upon first seeing the moon-scarred curve of her stomach. That unhappy fusion of flesh and chitin was a familiar sight to her now, as much as Eris might wish it otherwise. She unbent herself, limb by cramped limb. Once she had made it to a sitting position, she lifted the coarse, scratchy hem of her tunic up.

A hiss of air, sucked in through Ikora's teeth. _“Eris.”_

“It will heal.”

“Slowly.”

“If it's a question of my field-readiness -”

“It's not.” Sharp. A bright wavelet ran across Ikora's core, fracturing the delicate lattice that had formed there. As a Hunter, Eris might have been able to read meanings in the pattern. Now, the taste was all she could think of. Would it run cold and pure across her tongue, like water drunk straight from the source? Or would it crumble into a thousand different flavours, each one richer and more complex than the last? Her lips no longer felt parched. She almost missed Ikora's next words: “You're in pain.”

“I made a foolish mistake.” She'd thought herself hidden in fact as well as title, wrapped in layers of shadow not even the Taken would be able to peel back. A score or more had filed past above her head without so much as a twitch, but then an inverse Knight's trailing ribbons had fluttered in her direction. The body had followed, crouching down to confirm what it already knew. They'd held each other's gazes, uncertainty rippling across its form as a shiver ran through hers. Far too late, she'd reached for her knife. That heartbeat's worth of hesitation on its part was what had undone her.

“So what?” Unmeasured speech, from Ikora, was a rarity. Eris felt a secret, unworthy thrill at having provoked such an outburst; it brought to mind videos she'd seen of the young iconoclast Rey, talking the Consensus around when it would listen and shouting it down when it would not. “That's no reason to seclude yourself -”

“There are... complications.” Somehow, her hand had crossed half the distance to her mouth.

She could almost hear the swift turn of Ikora's mind, sorting through months of speculation. “Ah.”

“You see, now,” Eris said, “why I choose not to go among them.” Unbidden, an impression of the hall came back to her. It would be warmer than her quarters, climate control striving to compensate for the unseasonal chill that followed Guardian returnees inside. The youngest and most eager would be uncomfortably warm inside their field gear, bounded Light threatening to bubble over. A dull, nagging ache had settled in her gut. “Not until I recover.”

They sat in silence for a while. Eris could not tell what time of day it was; the stuffy, closed environment around her offered no clues. Was she keeping Ikora from her duties? A month ago, two months gone, she wouldn't have worried. The quiet would have served as a respite. Some selfish part of her wanted that easy camaraderie back, but she bit down on it and drew breath to speak. Ikora got there first.

“Light will heal you faster than time.” She was leaning forward now. Her hands would be on her knees, fingers digging in; it was the thinking posture she favoured when there were no real paper pages to flip through. “We've established that.”

“Yes,” Eris said. There was an edge to her voice, harsh and ragged. “We also know that the – the traditional methods are useless.” _The methods a Sunsinger might use,_ she'd almost said. She tiptoed around the sentence, evading memories of Eriana's touch and Toland's whispers. When she'd returned home with all the nerves in her body afire, Ikora had sought to ease her pain. She had absorbed every atom of light the Warlocks threw at her; a small, cold body, living up to her celestial namesake. In the end, she had begged them to stop.

“I don't mean energy manipulation. Not in that sense.” Multicoloured tendrils unfurled like kelp, reaching out toward Eris. She knew, then, and was already shaking her head in denial when the words came. “Take mine.”

The tunnel mouth yawned wide in front of her, opening out onto a chamber. Tiny pieces of grit stung her exposed toes, rubbed her rag-shod soles raw. Silence and stillness. All she could muster was a flat, “No.”

“Eris,” Ikora tried, and stopped. That halting note was unlike her. Nobody else could have begun to guess at what Eris saw, what might be taking shape in the green fire behind her eyelids. “This is different. I’m offering it to you.”

“That,” Eris said, “is worse.” She spoke without conviction. As repellent as the idea of taking Ikora’s Light in tithe was, it did not compare to her memory of the deep crèche and its thousand hungry mouths. He had not screamed yet. False, self-protective nonsense. She had heard him screaming first.

“You know I won't let you siphon off too much.” The kelp fronds multiplied, stabilised, became a network of burning bridges. Eris’ entire body itched like a phantom limb. “Not enough to truly feed it. Just enough to aid in regeneration.”

Were Eris still a tethered Guardian, she could have reached out with her own Light – reached out, or drawn back. There was a hollow ache beneath her ribs. Instead, she found herself offering Ikora a hand. After a beat that echoed the one before the Knight's blow, Ikora placed her own palm over it. The shock of contact was a second sword-strike; it laid her open, pared her flesh down to the bone. She had prepared herself for Light-woven fabric. In its place, she felt warm, contoured skin and a surge of energy that set her nerves to singing. A Warlock coming to her ungloved, and not just any Warlock… but no. The flesh forgot itself. Even as all her disparate parts thrilled under Ikora’s touch, she would not lose sight of who and where she was.

Still, it had weakened her resolve. Around the sour taste in her mouth, she said, “I can give you nothing in return.”

“You’ve given more than enough.” Power pulsed through Ikora's fingertips, a steady counterpoint to Eris' own heartbeat. “It’s yours, if you want it.”

 _Sky save us both_. Ikora could not know what sort of effect those words had. A mercy, Eris thought, that this warped body did not respond the same way her old one would have done: no noticeable increase in breathing rate, no rush of heat. Her fingers curled in on themselves, a final withholding. “You trust me with this?”

Gently, too gently, Ikora turned her hand over. Without prompting, her fist unclenched. Their palms touched in a mirror of the traditional Warlock greeting; clouds of green and gold sparks rose behind Eris’ eyes. Ikora’s voice was just loud enough to fill the space between them. “With all our worlds.”

She fell, and took.

It was not a tearing, as she had feared. Nor did it feel quite like skimming off another Guardian, though she had been enough of a loner in her second life for her memories of that to be hazy. She sipped, first, and then began to lap. The energy came away in filaments, soft strands that melted into the aether almost before she could absorb them. Ikora was peeling them loose herself, Eris realised, and with a deftness that made it seem as if she had years’ worth of offerings under her belt. _Peeling, offerings…_ those words took her back to the bone cradle, only now it was her power serving as restraint and Ikora’s voice screaming out against it. She recoiled. Perhaps she would have severed the connection, but then she felt the fingertips of Ikora’s free hand brush her cheek. Her Light-drunk body did not even have the sense to freeze. Instead, she turned her face into the touch, seeking a comfort she did not deserve. Ikora cupped her cheek, steadying her, and her thumb found the place where Hive tar clogged channels that had once run bright with starlight. She stroked the shallow groove Eris’ own unnatural tears had worn, fearless of residue, and said, “Don’t stop.”

It was too much. The twin hungers had become one in her mind, held at bay by a single effort of will; after giving in to the first, she could not help but yield to the second. If she turned her head a little, she would be able to kiss the centre of Ikora's bare palm. If she leaned forward... they were already sharing space, sharing air. It would be the work of moments to close that gap and taste Ikora's lips along with her Light. They would kiss each other, warm and slow and deep, until the distance between them became too much to bear. Eris would move to straddle Ikora's lap, trusting the sturdy chair not to make fools out of the pair of them, and Ikora - Ikora, in a world where they both shone, might arch up to meet her as she settled down. They would curl into each other, blood running Guardian-hot beneath their layers. Their spheres would overlap; Eris would fill Ikora to the brim and be filled in return, giving as good as she got. She delved inside herself, diving down to the benthic; there it was, a feeble spark suffocating beneath layers of sediment. Not enough to sustain her own existence, never mind anyone else's. Even so, she made an offering of it.

Ikora cradled it instead, wrapping the last fragment of Eris' second soul in a protective cocoon. She was surrounded by darkness, swimming in it just as she might have done the kinder seas of another Guardian's Light. Cold, she must be so very cold... but when she gasped, it was not in pain. The sound shook Eris like a thunderclap. Not all her body's original responses were lost. Desire split her down the middle, left her wet and open. Dreams crowded in to fill the gap: Ikora's mouth on hers. Ikora's mouth on her.

_Forgive me this one weakness, Eriana. My dead are no longer enough._

The dim greenness behind her eyes gave way to glittering white marble. The Speaker stood atop a high dais, presiding over a crowd of Guardians and civilians in light formalwear. Before Eris could identify the plaza they were gathered in, the sea of bodies parted. Down the centre of that impromptu walkway came Ikora, stepping with a lightness Eris knew must be feigned. She ascended the steps. Her robes were heavy, her head bare; how did she bear it, when everyone but the Speaker himself was dressed for a heatwave? The crowd held its collective breath. Light-laced memories stirred in Eris' mind: her newborn self had slipped in well behind the rest of that quarter's cohort, willing to give up all hope of a good view if it meant not having to deal with small talk afterward. Guilt gnawed at her, as intense as it was irrational. The new Warlock Vanguard had been a distant cipher to her then, a figure shrouded in controversy and breathless awe. All her concern that day had revolved around her own ability to slink away before the ceremony ended and her more charitable yearmates tried to include her in whatever celebration they had planned. Now, she felt suffocated by the weight of loss and betrayal Ikora had to be carrying. She longed to help shoulder that burden, to go and lie down with her somewhere far away from the unforgiving light.

With a clarity that went beyond what mere remembrance could offer, she saw Ikora bow her head to receive the chain of office. How small she had looked then, and on the day of her ascension!

All the bright-eyed, hungry faces ran together. The dais became a stone table, hemmed in by rock.

Ikora lay limp and lifeless, sprawled across the slab in an ungainly heap. A dull greyness had set in around the corners of her mouth. The sight of her upturned palms froze Eris' heart for a second; they were stained an impossible shade of red. At the centre of each rested a great flower petal, as bright and vital as living blood. There were no visible marks on her skin, but the petals created an illusion of injury: they had fallen in swirls across her forehead, throat, stomach. No, _fallen_ was the wrong word. Some invisible hand had strewn them there, forming complex geometries whose meaning hovered just outside Eris' reach. It was not a gesture of respect - but neither, she thought, was it one of contempt.

A harsh light flared at the head of Ikora's bier. There stood Eris herself, proud and princely. The sword in her hand shone with an unforgiving brilliance, but not even that could disguise the jagged bone underneath. The hood she wore hid her eyes and expression both. She bent over Ikora, robes rustling, and the blade burned brighter still -

Eris flinched. The link broke, shattering her vision into emerald fragments. Ikora sighed - a sigh of relief, surely - and drew back her hand. Her fingertips grazed Eris' cheek as they went, each one leaving a line of fire behind it. Hot shame coiled through Eris' hollows, followed by a startling flash of fury. Could they not even grant her a dream of sweetness? Even that, if nothing else?

They were no longer touching, for all the good it did. Eris' awareness had been sharpened to the point of pain. She felt Ikora's thoughts spin, heard her lick her lips and take a small, preparatory breath. "Was it enough?"

With some reluctance, Eris shifted her focus to her own body. The deep ache still lingered, but she could feel a shift happening in and around her wound. It was not so very different from the sensation of a Ghost knitting skin and bone and organ meat back together; healing processes, spun up. "Too much," she said, "for you?" It should have been a statement of reproach. Instead, it sounded uncertain.

"I could spare far more." From anyone else, those words might have been underpinned by immortal arrogance. In Ikora's mouth, they were a bald statement of her own limits. Against her will, Eris felt her lips twitch. Ikora noticed it, as Eris had known she would, and an answering smile was evident in her tone as she went on: "Neither of us have any reason to be modest."

The word _modest_ came close to breaking her. She wanted to seize Ikora by the shoulders, pull her in again and kiss the shape of it out of her mouth. Steepling her hands in her lap, she made herself think of silence and stillness and sand on a tunnel floor. The bier slid back into her consciousness. This time, she was the one laid to rest in state. Green light illuminated her still form. Knowing what would come next did not make it any easier to watch Ikora stand over her, sword raised.

Then she flung it away.

Eris started, both in the flesh and in the unreal world of second sight. That tiny movement disturbed the petals, turning their arcane language into gibberish. Somewhere far off, Ikora waited. Her dream-equivalent reached down just as Eris reached up, and they clasped hands. More swords gleamed in the dark, a ring of teeth snapping shut. She and Ikora stood back to back, each in the fullness of her strength and ready to fight with all the powers at her disposal; or they fell onto the slab in a haphazard tangle of limbs and let themselves be drowned; or one of them crumbled into dust and left the other to face their foes alone...  

An infinity of ends flitted through Eris' mind before the vision fell apart, dissolving into a greenish-gold wave of light.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this was written back in 2015, while I was batting around ideas for Eris/Ikora/various weird and wonderful Light effects. Not long ago, I decided to _finally_ finish and post it. Thank you for reading!


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